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Monday, May 14, 2012

A Treatise on Matt. 5:22-24—Part 4—Reconciling With a Brother

"But I say to you
that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court;
and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be guilty before the
supreme court; and whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go
into the fiery hell. If therefore you
are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother
has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go
your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your
offering." (Matt. 5:22-24 NAS)

(This will conclude a
series of 4 articles on this passage having already covered verse 22 in the
prior 3 articles.)

Can a man be saved who
has contempt for and mistreats his fellowman?
John says no when he says, "By
this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who
does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love
his brother." (1 John 3:10 NAS)
Contempt for and mistreatment of a brother are the opposite of love and
places one in the devil's camp. Four
verses later John says, "We know
that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He
who does not love abides in death." (1 John 3:14 NAS)

One is either a child of
God or a child of the devil, there is no middle ground, and John declares that
the man who does not love his brother is not of God. Such a man abides in death. Thus verse 23 of this passage begins with the
words "if therefore" tying what is to come with what has just been
said in verse 22 and verse 22 talks about different ways one can be unloving
toward his brother.

One cannot on the one
hand worship God and on the other hand mistreat his fellowman whom God created
and gave a soul to and for whom Christ also died. God does not show partiality for "there is no partiality with God."
(Rom. 2:11 NAS) "All have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God." (Rom. 3:23 NAS) "There is none righteous, not even one."
(Rom. 3:10 NAS) The man whose vanity and
pride has led him to see himself as being in a better position before God than
others, say for example the Pharisee who went up to pray in Luke 18:10-14,
fools only himself.

Christians need to be
very aware of the great danger they are in at all times as regards this
matter. They try their best to be
faithful and obedient in all things.
There is much evil they would not think of partaking in. We see sin and protest against it as we
should. The Pharisee that went up to
pray to God and went back unjustified in Luke 18 was not wrong in saying there
were swindlers, unjust, and adulterous people in the world for that there were
and always will be. The Pharisee saw
that. He did not partake in those
things. He seemed to be faithfully
obeying the commands of God so what was his problem?

He had lost sight of the
fact that he too was but a mere mortal, a man in need of God's grace and
forgiveness. His obedience in
commandment keeping had evidently been so great as to blind his eyes to his own
sins. Pride had grown up in his heart
and so much so that he was feeling sorry for other sinners who needed
forgiveness unlike himself who he felt no longer needed it. He had become his own judge. He would judge not only himself but also his
fellowman. How did he know this
tax-gatherer who was also praying was a sinner extraordinaire? He was ready to take God's place as judge of
all. His outward commandment keeping,
the outward observances of such, had led him to judge himself a righteous man
in need of no forgiveness.

God judges a man's
heart. "But the LORD said to Samuel, '…for God sees not as man sees, for man
looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'" (1
Sam. 16:7 NAS) "I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the
mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results
of his deeds." (Jer. 17:10 NAS)
"My shield is with God, Who
saves the upright in heart." (Psalms 7:10 NAS) It is the pure in heart that shall see God
(Matt. 5:8). The Pharisee had a heart
problem.

All Christians today who
are trying to live faithful obedient lives need to beware of the tendency we
all have to become like this Pharisee.
We are faithful in the outward observances of Christianity, most concede
we are, and the first thing we know we can find ourselves having trouble
finding fault with ourselves. We can end
up worshipping ourselves rather than God.
The Bible says of that particular Pharisee that when he prayed he was
"praying thus to himself." (Luke
18:11 NAS)

The man who would do
such things as Jesus spoke of in our text in Matt. 5:22 seems to be a man much
like the Pharisee of Luke 18 in his attitude toward his fellowman and towards
himself. Jesus is telling us in verses
23 and 24 of our text if we have been this way toward our fellowman, have been
disrespectful, hurtful, degraded him, or done him wrong in anyway go take care
of that problem now. Go to him, own up to your sin, and be
reconciled. That has top priority. Do not delay.
What a wonderful world it would be if we would all obey God's golden
rule—Matt. 7:12--(man gave it the name "golden" but the rule is
God's).

"He who does not love his brother whom he has
seen cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20 ESV) Let us all start loving our brother as we
should.

Good Bible Study Sites

YouTube

I have gotten a lot of good out of listening to lectures by the following Christian apologists on YouTube. Like C. S. Lewis they deal little with doctrine, almost exclusively with apologetics. I am sure I would not agree with them on some issues of doctrine, in fact I know I don't, but they do a great job on apologetics.

Ravi ZachariasGary HabermasJohn LennoxMichael Ramsden

I could mention others I listen to but these men provide a good starting point. Just do a search on their names in YouTube's search engine to find their lectures.